Retopo WIP

I've got obsessive about retopo - sculpted this creature in Sculptris, retopoed in Blender and finished off the details in Hex. The colours are placeholders for when it eventually gets into Carrara.

The more I get into Blender, the sadder I get that Hex has been allowed to wither on the vine. Blender has such great features, but they are so difficult to find - I just image what Hex could be with a few more tools and made more robust.

Hexseacreature.jpg

800 x 671 - 98K

Comments

I was going to say it was a cute little critter, but then had a second look : do I want to meet it alone in a dark night.. :-)
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I agree that Hex should get more development.
It does crash a lot. So I've learned to save every five minutes.
As a polygon modeler Hex does have a lot of tools. I only use a fractions of them.
But I'm missing a retopo function. And the UV-mapper and paint-tools could have been better.
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I have tried both Z-brush and 3D-Coat. I couldn't get a grip on Z-brush, but I'm considering buying 3D-Coat.

The more I get into Blender, the sadder I get that Hex has been allowed to wither on the vine. Blender has such great features, but they are so difficult to find - I just image what Hex could be with a few more tools and made more robust.

3D Coat really looks tempting - but on my budget, Sculptris and Blender is about as far as I can go.

I plan to upload a new retopo in Hex video today or tomorrow. I have found a new and better way to do it in Hex.
Blender's retopo is good , but I find myself using the XSI mod tool more and more for retopo. The Xsi mod tool is free and has all the same features as XSI 7.5 but does have a few limitations. If anyone wants more info. I would be glad to give it.

PS I am working on the house modeling series a little at a time between other projects.

Hi johnny - looking forward to your Hex retopo tut - I'll have to wait to 1 August because my bandwidth allowance is running empty from all the Blender tuts

I'd be very interested in learning about this XSi method - no idea what that's about.

Here's the sea creature all UV'd out in UU3D - took three days hard work. I'll be 3d painting it, so the layout is not important, as long as there are no overlaps.

I did not realize anyone else was using UU3D.
I have not used it in a while. For a while now i have been focused on modeling and learning to sculpt. There so many tools in UU3D I don't have a clue how to use. Hexagon's uv tool set is not very good and does some weird stuff. I will start doing some XSI mod tool videos soon.
The mod tool also has a poly reduction tool that is the best I have ever used. Any way I will always keep Hexagon in my tool set for alot of stuff, but I am kind of drifting into the Blender, XSI direction lately.

That is a nice model by the way, looks like you have some nice even poly distribution.

Johnny, the more you use XSI the more you will like it, I guarantee. I'm curious as to the limitations you mentioned for Mod Tool. Aside from having to be connected to the net to even do a render region, the only ones I ever noticed were non-commercial and a watermarked render. My license is for 6.5 and educational so aside from the watermark, Mod Tool is actually more versatile since it has ICE.

Thanks, ,johnny - pretty easy to get good edge flow using retopo - seems to work better the denser the base mesh.

UU3D is a great tool - just very frustrating making selections and I've not found a way to adjust the near clipping plane, so it becomes very difficult to make selections on fine detail.

Could you guys tell me more about XSi - on the site it says the download is free, but there is a trial version. The download is 400Meg and I don't want to waste bandwidth only to find it's a trial which will expire or so limited it can't be used. Does it import/export .obj - I guess, being Autodesk, it will use .fbx?

It's hard to understand how AD does things. I suspect they are calling it a trial because it's non-commercial? Mod Tool has been free with no time limit since before AD bought XSI, unless something has changed recently. Unless there are restrictions I don't remember on file types, you get the full range for import/export. Crosswalk used to be a separate dl that kept .fbx up to date, not sure how it works now.

AD used Mod Tool to replace it's outdated game app that I can't remember the name of. I would expect an update to Hex long before Mod Tool ever sees one.

From Autodesk- Autodesk® Softimage® Mod Tool software (formerly XSI Mod Tool) is a free* 3D modeling and animation package for creating noncommercial games and "modding" (modifying games). Autodesk® Softimage® Mod Tool 7.5 is based on the same professional toolset found in Autodesk® Softimage® 7.5 software, used by game developers to create 3D characters, levels, props, and animation
Render does have a watermark
There is poly limit, but I don't remember how large though. I have never ran into the limit yet. Most of my stuff is low to mid-range on the poly count.
I think there is limit on the texture export size, but most of the time I use UU3D for uv and texture.
I have exported obj and fbx , I have not tried the other formats.
when I export fbx i import into uu3d and export from there.( UU3D can import and export a ton of formats 50 dollars us for pro version )
UU3D is well worth the money.
I have exported obj into Hex and it works well.

There are so many tools and I have only tried just a fraction of them.
XSI view port navigation is very different but once you get it, it is very nice. You can change the nav to work like maya or max.
You can customize the hot keys and the view port . I have stayed with the defaults till I learn how to use everything better.

Johnny, the more you use XSI the more you will like it, I guarantee. I'm curious as to the limitations you mentioned for Mod Tool. Aside from having to be connected to the net to even do a render region, the only ones I ever noticed were non-commercial and a watermarked render. My license is for 6.5 and educational so aside from the watermark, Mod Tool is actually more versatile since it has ICE.

"the more you use XSI the more you will like it"
Yes you are correct, I must say I am hooked.
Just one problem I am having is setting up modeling with symmetry.
I have to say that is something hex does very well.

Never thought of using UU3D for texturing - I see it has animation capabilities - never got round to trying that out. BTW, it does very good poly reduction.

Johnny - saw your new video on retopo in Hex, so tried an experiment which worked out great. Instead of building the mesh poly-by-poly, I drew a bunch of parallel lines along the length of the body, clicking with Shift held to make points. These snap nicely to the base mesh - then used ruled surface to create a mesh - brilliantly fast and solves the problem you had of the polys not welding on some points.

I'd say that using it this way I can do a retopo faster and neater than in Blender - but of course, I'm still pretty clumsy in Blender.

I never use symmetry when modeling so I can't help much explaining how it works. I just work on a half and when I want to see what it looks like as a whole I r-click and choose symmetrize polygons. Hitting the + key a couple times lets you see what it looks like subdivided quick too without having to deal with Hex's dynamic geometry.

I'm far from an expert but have been using it for several years. I'd be glad to share any tips or tricks I've developed.

"the more you use XSI the more you will like it"
Yes you are correct, I must say I am hooked.
Just one problem I am having is setting up modeling with symmetry.
I have to say that is something hex does very well.

I never use symmetry when modeling so I can't help much explaining how it works. I just work on a half and when I want to see what it looks like as a whole I r-click and choose symmetrize polygons. Hitting the + key a couple times lets you see what it looks like subdivided quick too without having to deal with Hex's dynamic geometry.

I'm far from an expert but have been using it for several years. I'd be glad to share any tips or tricks I've developed.

"the more you use XSI the more you will like it"
Yes you are correct, I must say I am hooked.
Just one problem I am having is setting up modeling with symmetry.
I have to say that is something hex does very well.

I would love to chat with you more about XSI.

I think that is what I will do also, but also sometimes I use clone and a negative scale on the x axis.
Then you can also convert it to model and create an instance, still some issues with that though.

If I was to pick one thing I disliked most it would be the inability to extrude along normals. If you want to extrude 4 sides of a cube to form a +, you have to do each face separately for example. You can sometimes get it to work by using extrude along axis but that doesn't always work depending on what you're trying to do and there's no way I've found to do it by simply using ctrl-d, which is how I like to do extrudes.

Rotoscope, on the hand, is so much easier than using image planes for references though.

If you haven't tried it yet, make a simple glass using draw curve by cv's and revolving it. Then do the same in Hex and you'll see why I dislike using Hex for operations like that.

Maybe those of that are xsi users should meet up in another forum, so that we can get full on discussions and support.
Anyone else that is interested could join us.

Anyone have any suggestions where?
I kinda feel bad for hijacking this thread.
I will always do Hex tuts and keep it in the old tool box, but I think it is time to expand.
So far there are three of us and I think Roy is also interested.

Yes, it would be good to meet elsewhere - no problem with the thread going off on a tangent, but I don't think it's polite to have an in-depth discussion of a competitor's products in the Daz forum.LOL

Thanks, guys - I'm not much into organic modelling so I was happy to get this method to work for me.

Johnny, the tri-ax is what Genesis is all about. It basically means you can assign different weights to each axis. Get the DS4.5 pro while it's still free - there is some documentation on it, but Daz hides it very well.